By Benjamin Davis

In the wake of all the turmoil of Israel’s role in the Middle East, many sincere Christians have found themselves wondering if what has been taking place is the fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Indeed, there are many Bible passages that, from a natural perspective, could seem to prophesy the recent turbulence. However, Father God desires His children to learn to see things from His spiritual perspective through the lenses of His new covenant.

The prophet Jeremiah prophesied this new covenant:

“Behold, the days are coming…when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them,” says the LORD. “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days…I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Jer. 31:31-33).

Jeremiah’s prophecy is quoted in the New Testament (Heb. 8:7-13, 10:15-18) to show that he was prophesying about God’s new creation people, the church of Jesus Christ.

What seems to be little understood in relation to Old and New Testament prophecy is that God went through a divorce. In Hosea 2:2 we read,

Bring charges against your mother, bring charges;
For she is not My wife, nor am I her Husband!

God pledged Himself in the old covenant as a husband to Israel, but because of Israel’s continued unfaithfulness to the covenant, He was forced to cast her off (divorce her). However, because He is the God of restoration, He had a plan for redemption. That plan is found in Jesus Christ and His new covenant church, and His prophets foretold of it:

“And it shall be, in that day,”
Says the LORD,
“That you will call Me ‘My Husband’…
I will betroth you to Me forever” (Hos. 2:16, 19).

“That day” of remarriage between God and His people describes the day of the new covenant with Christ (Hos. 2:23; Rom. 9:25-26).

The Apostle Paul describes this new covenant remarriage in Romans.

Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead (Christ), that we should bear fruit to God (Rom 7:4). Paul was saying that those who are still under the old covenant law cannot be married to Christ in the new covenant. The reason for this is that the law by itself serves only to allow the sinful nature of man to fully come forth (Rom. 7:7-12) revealing how truly sinful man is apart from Christ.

The law that old covenant Israel lived under (and still lives under today) proved to be incapable of producing the fruit (Gal. 5:22-23) that God desired from His people. That is the reason for the divorce:

For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them, He says: Behold…I will make a new covenant…(Heb. 8:7-8).

The culmination of God’s divorce with old covenant Israel as a nation was prophesied again by Jesus in Matthew chapters 21-24. He stated His generation would see the finalization of the divorce in the destruction of the Jewish temple forever and the end of its old covenant ways (Matt. 24:2,14,34). That prophecy was fulfilled in 70 AD when the Roman army took Jerusalem, destroyed its temple, and ended the Jewish religion of sacrifices and offerings. Simply said, the significance of the old covenant nation of Israel was destroyed forever, and the nation that currently exists in the Middle East is a non-biblical nation. It is no longer connected to Bible prophecy!

The good news is that God has remarried the new covenant spiritual Israel, His church. (Rev. 19:7,9, 22:17). The church is the nation that is fulfilling Bible prophecy today as a “holy nation” (1 Pet. 2:9). She is the bride of Christ and has the laws of God written in her heart and mind. God’s Holy Spirit dwells in her to cause her to always be faithful to Him (Ezek. 36:25-27). To all who are in the Middle East, and to all who are not in the Middle East, “the Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!’”

Benjamin Davis is an associate pastor
of Abundant Life Covenant Church.